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Michigan State football players find out brothers come in handy in workouts

“I'm just thankful that I have him as a brother so he can be here for me in this time of need,” Matt Allen said Monday on a conference call with reporters. “I'm just gonna squeeze out as much of him as I can. Hopefully he doesn't start to get too tired on me, because I'm just gonna keep pounding on him to help me strive to get better every day.”

The Spartans have become crafty in preparing for the fall, their first with coach Mel Tucker, as all of the team facilities are off-limits.

Offensive lineman Justin Stevens — a freshman early enrollee from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia — posted a video to Twitter of himself lifting four massive tires with his hulking 6-foot-5, 292-pound frame. Allen said fellow offensive lineman AJ Arcuri is still in East Lansing lifting cinder blocks on a wooden stick in his home gym, while defensive back and special teams standout Dominique Long told Allen he is using gallon water bottles and adding more each time to his makeshift weight training.

“I was a little nervous at first to see what guys were gonna be able to do,” said Allen, a returning starter who is entering his fifth season. “But everybody's been posting videos in our group chat just to make sure everybody's staying accountable, and everybody's been getting their work done. So it's really good to see.”

Matt Allen is not the only one using his brother.

Senior linebacker Antjuan Simmons is home working out with his younger brother, Dennis, a defensive lineman who played in six games for Division III Olivet as a freshman last fall. It is the first chance they have had to spend this much time together since they were in high school at Ann Arbor Pioneer.

Michigan State football senior linebacker Antjuan Simmons is at home with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and finding different ways to work out apart from his Spartan teammates. "This is Sam, and he's my running partner," Simmons said. "We do runs every other day." (Photo courtesy of Antjuan Simmons)(Photo: Photo courtesy of Antjuan SImmons)

“We’re rarely at home at the same time. The only times I’ve gotten to see my little brother is if he so happens to come to a game or he’s in the area of Lansing, he stops by,” Antjuan said. “All the way up to this point, I probably saw my little brother about four times (this year). So I’m definitely happy and excited to be around him.”

For 22-year-old Matt Allen, who has started 16 games the past two seasons and has played in 30 games total the past three years, it is an opportunity to learn from one of the best centers in MSU history.

Jack, a 27-year-old who was a two-time USA Today All-American at the position and a four-year starter from 2012 to 2015, is staying with his youngest brother at their family home in Hinsdale, Illinois. Middle brother Brian, who plays for the Los Angeles Rams and also is a former MSU center, has remained in Los Angeles to continue rehabbing a knee injury he suffered in November.

If there is one thing the Allen brothers have been known for, it is how they have pushed each other athletically since they were children, whether it is lifting weights, wrestling or working on football technique.

“It's helped a ton,” Matt said of working with Jack. “I mean, we have our own little blocking pads here at the house, and we'll just go right outside the door and we have a patch of grass that we'll go on ... He'll watch my feet while I'm going through stuff and he'll watch my hands while I'm going through stuff. And just in the two weeks I've already just felt the improvements."

Simmons scoured for weight equipment for him and his brother to use, saying it was a tough task because online retailers were running low on fitness products, with much of the nation starting to work out from home during quarantines. He eventually bought “pretty much all the essential stuff” — a bench press rack and weights, dumbbells, weighted vests and resistance bands — to get in full-body workouts.

Michigan State's Dominique Long, right, tackles Indiana's David Ellis on a kick return during the second quarter on Saturday, Sept. 28, 2019, in East Lansing.(Photo: Nick King/Lansing State Journal)

Simmons’ new normal schedule took a week to get adjusted to, he said. His week starts with a 9 a.m. tutoring session, followed by a workout and then lunch. After studying film, it’s time to focus on classwork until dinner time. There is more free time on Mondays and Wednesdays; the other three days are booked, including team meetings through online video conferencing.

“Right now, it’s a little bit more responsibility — more personal responsibility — on you as far as taking care of everything that you are supposed to be doing,” he said. “Doing the classwork, working out, running when you need to. … For me, it’s just been important for me setting the tone, making sure the guys know that if our plans are to win a championship, make sure we are all still working. Treating these last few months as if we are still trying to make it our best offseason, even though we aren’t in the facilities working.”

Simmons said it was tough to learn that MSU’s 15 spring practices to begin Tucker’s tenure essentially had been wiped out, but he also understands that the social distancing measures and stay-at-home orders during the pandemic are “the best thing to do right now for everybody in the public and society.

“It would be completely unsafe for us and for football teams to be out there working out and doing all that stuff,” he said. “It would be unsafe for us to do that, so this is the right thing for us to do. And there’s no problem with that. It’s just going to show who is committed and who is not. That’s all it is.”

As for when that first practice might come, Matt Allen said that is not part of the Spartans’ focus at the moment.

“I’ve really just been taking it one day at a time,” he said. “This is a very unique situation, so I don’t know what the outcome will be. I’m just leaving that in God’s hands and doing as much work as I can every day to prepare like we’re coming back tomorrow.”